


Fade In, Fade Out: Coda

by Ray_Writes



Series: Fade In, Fade Out [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, F/M, Laurel Lance Lives, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25843057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: Now that Black Siren has brought back her doppelganger, there's not much left for her to do on Earth-1 or Earth-2. The multiverse provides an alternative.
Relationships: Earth-2 Laurel Lance/Earth-2 Oliver Queen
Series: Fade In, Fade Out [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875244
Comments: 13
Kudos: 20





	Fade In, Fade Out: Coda

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I was rereading some fics and realized that back while writing Fade In, Fade Out, I had mentioned doing a follow-up to show what became of Earth-2 Laurel after resurrecting Earth-1 Laurel. I don't remember what my original plan was for her, but I thought I'd be nice and give her a happy ending. I hope you enjoy!

She was kind of pissed off about it, actually.

Laurel had kept an eye and ear out for any Star City news, just in case Diaz had had men follow her or realized her deception in restoring her doppelganger to the world. But she’d barely gotten through more than five articles at a computer terminal in Mumbai before coming across a headline detailing the capture of Ricardo Diaz by federal agents after a building collapse.

A building collapse. She had just… walked right in there and done it? Ugh, other her was so perfect it was _sickening_.

A few tabloid-style publications had picked up the story that Felicity Smoak had moved out of the city as well, and that Oliver Queen seemed to be spending a lot more time with his old flame instead. Laurel decided to stop paying attention to the Star City news after that. The her from this Earth could go on and have her perfect life with her living dad and Oliver. It didn’t matter to her. They’d never been hers to begin with, no matter their lame and halting entreaties to the contrary.

But where did that leave her on this Earth?

She laid low for a while, on the move constantly. She stole only what she needed to survive, because anything bigger would get her noticed. By the authorities or by the next strongman to come into her life. She was so sick of being the bitch on a leash for one of them. Maybe she was just getting old, but she was so _tired_ of it all. It wasn’t fun. It just sucked.

What if she could have been the good girl, the hero like her other self? It wouldn’t have worked here; she’d burned too many bridges, pissed off too many people. She kept expecting Dinah Drake to jump out of the shadows with some corny line about how she was putting her down for good. And she hadn’t even _wanted_ to kill Vince.

Home would be no better. Assuming she could even explain where she had disappeared to for two years, people had seen her face while fighting for Zoom. She’d be rounded up and tossed in a cell, though at least that would hopefully mean regular meals. In either direction, she was facing a pretty meager existence.

It was these thoughts that had her sprawled across the crap mattress of a cheap motel one morning, too unmotivated to bother getting up, when the wall beside her bed suddenly rippled with bright light. Laurel rolled off the bed and stood in one fluid movement, reaching for the gun that she’d stored in the bedside table, but she stopped when a man stepped out of it.

“Oh, it’s you.”

“Yes, it is me,” said Oliver. He was dressed in jeans, a sweater and jacket and had boots on that would be suited for hiking. Must’ve been a day off from all the politicking.

“Okay, what are you doing here? I gave you your bird back, what more do you want?”

But he shook his head, a smile blooming on his face as he slowly walked around the bed. “No, Laurel, it’s _me_.” He reached out to cup her face. “It’s Ollie.”

His eyes were different, his _voice_ , and it was calling back to her through the years.

She froze. “Ollie? That’s not — you’re dead.”

“I’m not. I should’ve been, but then…”

“Then what?” She stepped back, ripping out of his hold. “If this is some kind of trick, so help me—”

“It’s not, I’m just trying to find the right words,” he said, one hand raised in the air palm-up. “I was going to drown, but then I was saved by… well, basically some kind of god. His name’s Novu.”

“What?” Her face scrunched up. That wasn’t even a name.

“He’s also called the Monitor. And his job is to stop this thing called Crisis that’s coming for all the Earths. Since I was supposed to die, that made me the perfect candidate to be his agent of sorts. I’ve been traveling the multiverse, helping prepare the heroes on each one for Crisis.”

“So, you’ve been out there this whole time,” Laurel began, struggling to wrap her head around this. “And you never once thought it might be nice to tell me you _weren’t_ dead?”

“I know.” He hung his head. “I haven’t been to Earth 2 in over ten years. I didn’t know what was happening back home. Believe me, I was not happy with Novu when he finally told me some of what you’d been through.”

“You mean what I’ve done.” She looked down, her eyes feeling hot and heavy with tears that threatened to spill. Laurel had always told herself that at least her Ollie had never had to find out what she’d become over the years, and now he was here, telling her he knew? How could he even look at her?

“A lot of what you have done is survive. You’ve been so alone, Laurel, and how were you going to decide to be some kind of hero if you had nothing to fight for?” He was approaching her more slowly this time, giving her plenty of opportunity to back away again. “Not everything I’ve done for Novu would be called heroic, either. But I know you, and I know you can turn over a new leaf if someone gives you the chance.”

“My doppelganger’s dad gave me one, and I ditched,” she pointed out.

“After bringing his daughter back to life. And really, Laurel, I think deep down that wasn’t just the selfish action you think it was.”

She wasn’t used to someone knowing her like this. It had been so long since she had seen him, and she had assumed that if she were to ever somehow meet her Ollie again that he wouldn’t recognize her. But he was here and telling her he did.

“Why are you here now? I mean, why wait so long?”

“It took me a long while to realize what I was doing for Novu was necessary, and not just to save my own life. But I’ve proven my worth and earned his trust. He felt I could do more with a partner. I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone but you,” he told her, grinning again in a boyish sort of way that took some of the years off him and made him look even more the way she remembered. “And now that you’ve brought back this Earth’s Dinah Laurel Lance and inadvertently restored some of their timeline, you don’t have to remain on any one Earth either.”

“So… I’d be traveling the multiverse for this god-guy?” If not for the fact that she was literally standing in a parallel universe, she would have never believed it.

“With me,” Ollie added helpfully.

“With you,” she repeated, her voice soft. This was still so unbelievable. Since when did she get this kind of lucky? “Well, in that case… how can I say no?”

What the hell? She didn’t have anything to lose. And if this wasn’t some bizarre dream and it really _was_ her Ollie, she was never letting him go again.

Laurel launched herself forward. He caught her in his arms, but she stilled because something was _weird_ with his left one. Laurel pulled back and took his hand, realizing it wasn’t actually flesh and blood, but some kind of prosthetic. “What happened?”

He let out a soft laugh. “Uh, yeah, it’s gotten complicated along the way sometimes. Long story.”

“You’re gonna have all the time in the multiverse to tell me. And this is just proof this Novu guy should’ve brought me on earlier.” She was never letting him get hurt like this again.

“Yes, it is, pretty bird,” he agreed readily. Then he leaned in, and Laurel closed her eyes as she felt his lips on hers for the first time in over a decade. This, she knew, couldn’t be faked.

When they parted, he took her hand in his regular right one and gestures towards the weird ripples in the wall. “Shall we?”

Laurel smiled. A real smile, not a fake one for undercover or a smirk or a sneer. “We shall.”

So maybe her doppelganger had gotten her hero’s happy ending after all. Laurel didn’t mind that so much anymore.


End file.
